About the project «Norrøne Tekster og Kvad»

About the project «Norrøne Tekster og Kvad»

The purpose of the project "Norrøne Tekster og Kvad" (Old Norse Prose and Poetry) is to make Old Norse literature freely accessible on the internet. In addition to source texts in the original language readers will find several texts translated into the later Scandinavian languages, classical scholarly works and other background material, in particular from before 1900.

The project, which is constantly under development, was opened to the public on 1st August 2005. Its aim is to provide a collection of texts that is as comprehensive as possible. The focus is on user-friendliness: all texts have been proofread and documents are available in printable format; keywords can be easily searched. The intention is that "Norrøne Tekster og Kvad" will prove both convenient and useful to serious researcher and amateur enthusiast alike. The project is well under way, but there is still much to be done to complete the task as originally envisaged. The project’s address is www.heimskringla.no .

For copyright reasons a small number of the texts are password-protected and inaccessible to the general public.

The project «Norrøne Tekster og Kvad» seeks working partners

Funding

The "Norrøne Tekster og Kvad" project is a private initiative. It is a non-profit-making concern and exists for the purpose of publishing only. The cost of technical operation and equipment is borne by the owners. Many thousands of working hours have already been put into the project in addition to financial outlay for buying and renting technical equipment and buying in relevant literature. The project is seeking financial subsidy through official and private support agencies and sponsors, and through select advertising and prospective "supporting members".

Naturally, all serious contributors will be credited for their contribution, but it would be financially impossible to pay prospective contributors: the best possible reward is the pleasure and prestige in taking part.

All financial contributions are very gratefully received. If you or your organisation would like to provide financial support, contact us!

The "Norrøne Tekster og Kvad" project seeks volunteer proofreaders

The most arduous and time-consuming work for the project is proofreading. To help with this, contributors will need their own PC or ready access to a PC. Familiarity with using word processing software would be an advantage for beginners in proofreading. It is also important to have a good working knowledge of the Scandinavian languages: Danish, Swedish and Norwegian (Bokmål/Nynorsk) in their older and younger written forms. It would also be an advantage to have some knowledge of Old Norse literature, the Old Norse language, modern Icelandic and Faeroese, although these may not be necessary depending on the actual proofreading to be undertaken. The object will be to compare the digital text on the screen with the printed version: the text will be scanned into the PC using an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program and these often throw up mistakes which must be corrected manually. The proofread digital text should then be identical with the printed edition. This is an exacting task, which should be carried out with great vigilance. Therefore proofreading is the most important and prestigious contribution that can be made to the project.

Help is also needed with scanning in books for later editing and proofreading. The requirement for text scanning is that volunteers have access to a powerful PC with scanner, and the necessary skills to use the software.

Limitations of the project

The purpose of the project is to draw together as comprehensive a collection of Old Norse literature as is possible: in practice the most limiting aspect is the acquisition of original books and articles. It is obvious that the project cannot be completed in a short space of time. The speed with which this is done, and the breadth and excellence of each area covered, are dependent upon those who are contributing to the project at any one time.